Dissemination genres of my ivory tower

Over the last 2-3 decades universities have had obligations of “public dissemination” and “innovation” added to their tasks. This has happened under a constant demand that academics should “leave the ivory tower”. 

There is much sense in wanting the universities to interact with the rest of society, even more so, as the demand for qualified employees and for knowledge of complex problems is ever on the rise. The universities have dutifully followed through on the demand, not always with enthusiasm, but generally with acceptance, and often with engagement.

However, a vexing rhetorical problem remains. The understanding that the universities are ivory towers persists, as if nothing has changed. Just now, a reputable publishing channel in news about academia, Times Higher Education ran a blogpost headlined "Brexit: a chance for universities to leave their ivory towers behind". I practically screamed. In the text, at least, the ivory tower is in quotation marks:

Every crisis is an opportunity. Brexit is, therefore, the ultimate opportunity for universities to connect and engage with society. Brexit can help to break down the “ivory tower” walls between academia and society, and I firmly believe that this is something that can benefit us all in the long run.

Even without the meaningless abstraction "Every crisis is an opportunity," I find the passage endlessly annoying for its use of the metaphor; even after all these years, and all this effort, re-sticking us behind the walls of the ivory tower can happen at a whim if it benefits a particular argument. The metafor, in fact, annoys me so much, than when reading the article, and the quote in question, all I get out of it is this: 

Brexit is such a huge mess brought on us by politics, that we as universities have to engage with politicians in order to avert disaster, and this will force us to open up to society.

(my summary, somewhat sharpened)

For an avid EU-fan such as myself that is hardly a compelling reason for anything.

One of the fundamental problems of the original metaphor was, of course, that the ivory tower probably never existed in the first place. Even in its most exclusive forms, the university was always a place, people moved through, picking up knowledge. The central point of teaching is influence society in a positive way. Young people entered, spent a number of years at the institution engaging with the knowledge it both developed and represented, and then left with this knowledge to make it, and themselves, useful in the surrounding society. The interchange between university and society was always there.

Moreover, a number of structures in contemporary university life excludes the public in new and hitherto unknown ways. The exclusive focus on publication in scholarly journals inaccessible and incomprehensible to the public at large, threatens to make expert knowledge an affair exclusively for experts. I know of no wall resembling an ivory tower more closely than the paywall of Elsevier. 

Also, many successful academics now work in research centers and research project that have little or no contact with university students, thus severing the classic link between teaching and research; these centers, too, may at times look like ivory tower inhabited by the lucky minority of researchers able to procure large sums of external funding–mainly through having success in publishing in exclusive journals.

However this may all be, the reemergence of the metaphor had me thinking about what genres I actually use or participate in when disseminating from my room in the supposed ivory tower. As a literary scholar, I am taken to be very muck out of touch; to inhabit a room very high up in the tower. But still: if I exclude the normal teaching genres, in what genres do I actually communicate with a broader public?

Foredrag (public lectures)
The foredrag (public lecture) is a big thing in Denmark, following a tradition dating back to N.F.S. Grundtvig. It's basic structure  is one where an academic lectures a broader audience about a topic of common interest, and in a way that is both enlightning and entertaining. In fact, these two must be combined in order for the foredrag to be considered a success.I have done a few hundred of those. 

Believe me: They cannot be done from the ivory tower. I have seen ivory tower-foredrag attempted; I do not want to see them attempted ever again. It's physically painful to watch.

Oh, and communal singing is often involved.

Journalist briefings
Aforementioned Grundtvig is central figure to Danish culture, so being an expert on him has often entailed briefing journalists about him. I have also briefed on other literary figures, on news satire, and on PhD education. This is a lot of fun, as you can be a little bit lighter when you are just presenting background and do not have to be quoted yourself.

Interviews
These cover several media, TV, radio, newspapers and an assortment of web pages, and they range from short quotes on this or that to extensive pieces of talk radio and even portrait-ish pieces. The media being what it is, I'm sometimes the expert, sometimes an "interesting person". In either case the interview form I encounter, is milder than in the interrogative form often adopted by journalists when interviewing politicians. So, I usually look pretty good - usually.

However, there is a catch. Journalistic interviews will often be seen from a specific angle, and the journalist does not have time for all the caution, all the nuances, and all the hedging, I like as an academic. So sometimes I feel slightly uneasy with the persona of me which appears in news outlets - and from time to time, I'm simply misquoted and look positively silly. But that's the name of the game, and I can live with it.

Answers to inquiries
I have not done a lot of this lately, but ever so often somebody simply gets in touch because they want to ask me stuff. It's frequently either retired people who  are just curious, or  it is active, and often charmingly assertive, high school students. The queries are often of a curious kind in the sense that questions to be answered tend towards, "what is, you know actually, for real-ish, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything". And these people mean business and are not taking 42 for an answer. 

It's not mass communication but it is some sort of outreach (or "inreach" by the public, if you will), and it can get very intense. The payoff is probably not equal to the effort, but I quite like it.

Newspaper reviews
In my line of work, I could do newspaper reviews for ever and ever. A number of my colleagues have a strong dual identity as researchers and reviewers. 

I have never done that many; I am no good at judging literary works in public, and even when reviewing non-fiction my hand seems to shake. ("Non-fiction", by the way, is a strange genre label, defined by a negative, but covering most of the writing that actually takes place, Jack Andersen, my colleague  at the Center for Genre Research, can tell you more about that.) I simply don´t like taking the sharp approach that defines most good newspaper reviewers - and, I think, all the legendary ones. 

Thus, my newspaper reviews always end up being quite friendly, and my persona as reviewer is somewhat defanged. I don´t do a lot of reviewing, and I don´t think I ever will. As a scholarly reviewer I seem to re-aquire my teeth and have no trouble at all biting to the bone, but those reviews are, obviously, not public outreach.

"Dissemination research"
I am not quite sure if this thing even has a genre name. But previously I did a lot of scholarly work in contexts where the actual publication was aimed at a broader audience: anthologies, popular journals, a literary history. This was actual research work, and a lot of what went into these publications was new knowledge fully on the level of my more sombre publications aimed exclusively at an audience of researchers.

I liked working in this genre. It combined my interests in research and in public outreach nicely, and it gave a broader audience access to my actual research; not "just" a later dissemination-version of said research. And given the central role of the interchange between academia and a wider public in Denmark (see "Foredrag" above), it also made me a lot of friends and drew an amount of attention worth the effort.

However, given the way money, status, and recognition moves in a contemporary research landscape, there is little time for such endeavors. Research efforts have to appear in publications that are clearly recognizable as research publications, and they have to be in English, and thus I lose my public research audience, even before the game begins. 

This is a great loss and a cause of grief for me, but the structures are against the genre. It is of marginal importance in my writing today.

Newspaper articles and commentary
I have written a few of these, but they are rarely research dissemination proper. They have to be cut too close for (my) comfort. But I'll probably do a few more, come time.

Blogposts
QED. 


So, it seems to me that the walls of my supposed ivory tower are pretty permeable. There are a number of genres available to me, in some of these, the outside world even comes to me in order to ask me to disseminate. Moreover, many of these genres are traditional in the sense that they have been handed down to me by previous researcher; and in turn I hand them down to new researchers as a way of getting them to work with dissemination. 

When confronted with the metaphor of the ivory tower, I sometimes ask to know where it is, because I want to get in. This, of course, is fine for polemic purposes. But, truth to tell, I don´t want to get in; I am fine in a lively interchange.

And, on this day, I most certainly do not need Brexit to get me out of any ivory towers. In fact, the incompetent orange narcissist in The White House aside, I believe Brexit is one of the few things that could make me depressed enough with the world to isolate myself in an exclusive concentration on my research and the genres connected to it.

The best genre blog (hint: it's not this one)

Seriously, if you want to know stuff about genre, if you are interested in the manifold aspects of genre, as it unfolds in politics, in institutions, in everyday life, and in our minds, there is a blog you should read. And no, it's not this one, but one that is so much better. I promise to do my very best to compete, but for now it is definitely a no-contest. 

The blog is run by one of the Captains of Genre Research, Amy Devitt of the University of Kansas. She is probably among the 5 most quoted genre researchers worldwide; and, I think, the researcher I reference the most at all. Her scholarly work is original and on an extremely high, well-nigh unbeatable, level. Moreover, it is always a distinct pleaure to read for its breadth of vision, its clarity, and its penetrating insights into the subject. Also, if you are nerd enough you sometimes get the chance to laugh while reading her; a rare pleasure in the exciting-but-tedious activity of staggering through scholarly work.

Also, Amy Devitt looks quite friendly:

(The person, btw, is exactly as nice, as you would expect from the picture. She is living proof that you can have a forthcoming, engaging personality, and a working conscience, and still be a contender for the crown. Take heed, young hotspurs!)

Her blog,  Genre-colored glasses, is absolutely staggering, and has been consistently maintained for a long time, so by now it is an absolute treasure trove of insights. All laid out in the simplest possible way, but with the complexities of any given subject kept intact throughout. 

The blog is also whimsical, personal, sometimes razor sharp, sometimes mild and even poetic; and it is very very engaged. 

So go there. (And remember to see Amy Devitt's homepage at the same time). Should you never return here, but just stay with her, I will forgive you. But do remember to send prof. Devitt my sincerest regards.

"You could give him a call". On implied genre knowledge

One of the most baffling and inspring characteristics of genre is the knowledge it implies. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons why genres are so prolific in culture is their ability to communicate effectively through implied knowledge; communication works, because genre knowledge allows both the utterer and the recipient to assume certain things known. 

Take a look at this poster:

This commercial, encountered some years back in one of the posh suburbs to Copenhagen, has a text that reads “Kender du Peter Pabst-Karlsson fra Nybolig…? Du kunne jo ringe til ham...” [“Do you know Peter Pabst-Karlsson from Nybolig...? You could give him a call…”].

Nybolig is a well-known Danish real estate chain. One of the interesting things about the commercial from a generic point of view, is it's suggestion that the spectator calls the friendly gentleman depicted; the assumption being, of course, that the man in the picture is, in fact, the Peter Pabst-Karlsson mentioned in the text. What fascinates me is the fact that the commercial suggests the telephone call, but does not specify what the subject of the conversation is to be.

However, any generically competent member of society is able to infer what this subject is.  The genre of the text is "real estate commercial", so the conversation has to be about a subject pertaining to real estate trading. You call Peter Pabst-Karlsson to sell a property or to buy one, not to chat about the weather. 

This information may not be given in the text, but it is implied in the interplay between genre and utterance. In fact, the successful impact of the commercial depends on this recognition. Interestingly, neither the sender nor the reader need to be aware that they are communicating through genre. The recognition of the genre is instantaneous, and so is the interpretation of the utterance. You do not have to stop and think about genre to fill in the blank-

Members of a particular discourse community can make inferences like his instantaneously, and they will even know that at some point in the process the nice looking man will expect to be paid for his services, and that it is, in fact, the promise of this payment which motivates the poster in the first place. 

For more on implied genre knowledge see my articles "Genre and Interpretation" and "Contemporary Genre Studies: An Interdisciplinary Conversation with JohannineScholarship". 

Norms and creativity in genre use

In late 2015 a satiric article from The New Yorker took a turn around my SoMe circles. It was titled “Academic Job Listings for my Exes” and contains what might reasonably be described as a clash of form and content. One of the listings read:

The renowned Department of Psychology at Dartmouth College is soliciting applications for a tenure-track Associate Professor of Hypochondria. We seek a candidate with an affinity for Peter Pan shoes, extensive experience diagnosing resting bitch face, and a willingness to see other people. Teaching responsibilities include courses in Recreational Ambien Use and upper-division seminars in Neediness and/or Polyamory. Successful applicant will be expected to establish a research agenda of panic attacks, puppy-dog eyes, germaphobia, and a chronic mistrust of happiness.

 The text is, of course, an uptake (Freadman) on the genre of the job listing, it is parodic, but in keeping with the theory of parody of Linda Hutcheon it is not directed at the “high” genre that it mimics, but rather at the low material, fitted into it.

                 The uptake into this satiric article, obviously, voids the original function–and thus the original raison d´être–of the job listing genre. There are no job opening to be filled, and no place to send the application. In terms of Rhetorical Genre Studies, the job listing would usually be part of (at least) one genre set (Devitt), a genre system (Bazerman), and a genre chain (Swales) leading to the actual hiring of an applicant. No such patterns exist in this case. Or rather: The genre patterns into which these listings fit are very different and have to do with news publications rather than job hirings. Furthermore, the basic job description, and the qualifications described, are such that nobody in their right mind would ever search for a person with those rather dubious qualities. So you´d have to be a fool to take these job listings seriously–not that such fools don´t exist: There is at least one homepage dedicated to tracking people who foolishly buy into stories from the satiric news service The Onion (and its equally prankish sister site Clickhole)–and it has plenty to report.

                 However, despite the fact that there clearly is no job listing at all, the genre of the job listing is still there as a template on which the text is molded. There is the institution hiring, the actual job to be filled, and a description of the needed candidate. To specify this as an academic job offering the job listing given here also specifies the teaching obligations and the research expected of the chosen candidate. Moreover, the style, choice of words, sentence structure etc., is largely compliant with the job listing as a genre. I say “largely compliant”, of course, because some of the wording used to describe the required applicant is exactly what is off compared to the usual job listings.

                 This, of course, begs the question “why?” What is achieved by this alternate uptake on the genre of the job listing? Well, first of all we have the fundamental method and effect of almost all parody: The clash of styles. These two elements belong together: It is a method, because it is effective, and the effect usually is comical. This kind of entfremdung or making the known slightly strange as a way of making you see differently, is a mainstay of generic manipulation.

                 What you see differently is something which is usually presented in another, less formally organized genre: the rant. Each individual job listing draws a picture of a perfectly insufferable boyfriend, whose faults will make him a living nightmare to be with. However, if presented simply as a listing of the bad qualities of the boyfriend it would come off as a pitiful or aggressive rant, however the choice of an alternate genre gives it a form which makes it humerous, ironic, and even somewhat elegant.

So why the choice of the job listing? Probably because it has a certain affinity to the search for a partner. In both cases there is a sort of “open” need that can be filled by one person or another, but where the person actually chosen to fill the need will be an important presence to the employer/partner. Thus, making a viable choice is of crucial importance. Both the would-be employer and the person who searches for a partner will have certain requirements that they want to have met in order to commit to a hiring or a relationship.  Even if in the case of the search for a partner the demands are rarely made completely specific.

                 The title of the piece clearly marks the retrospective character of the job listings, they are “for my exes”, and thus there is a clash between the open character of the call on one side, and the specific person, they claim to have be molded on, on the other. By presenting the deplorable qualities of the person in the genre of the job listing, the article makes their shortcomings abundantly clear, and also exposes the stupidity of dating them. The contrast between the usual content of the genre and its actual realization in the article makes evident that nobody in their right mind would ever search for a person with those qualities. And thus even the hiring purpose of the job listing-genre, which the text so evidently discounts, has a role to play in the interpretation of it.

As is evident even from this very simple example, picked up more or less at random, the normative and the creative elements in the text intertwine, and though the text itself is some kind of generic novelty, it is clearly determined by the formal, thematic, and rhetorical character of the job listing as genre. This does not entail that the relationship between norm and creativity always follows this exact pattern, quite the opposite: The relationship is highly mutable and hard to put on a fixed formula. So it has to be examined and re-examined according to the particular context over and over.

                 To belabor my point: Genres are not, nor have they ever been, immutable. Genres have a strong regulative influence on our interpretation of a given utterance or situation. This influence, however, is of a special nature, as regulations imposed by genre can be broken at a moment’s notice or made the subject of manipulation or interpretation. Depending on the character of this break, it can lead either to an ingenious use of the genre, to a break between genre and utterance, or to a work that moves into, or even defines, an entirely different genre. Generic knowledge may not be a result of what is written “between the lines” on the lines as such; but all the necessary information certainly is not written on them either. What happens is that the text generates meaning by referring to or making a play on our structure of expectation.

                 As we move from simple examples to more complex ones, it will come as no surprise that fitting a given text into a genre becomes more and more difficult, and that the generic patterns involved become increasingly complex. However, the tacit interpretative interchanges between reader and genre persist into the more advanced cases. Indeed, in such cases the task of much scholarly interpretation becomes simply to make explicit what has in fact already been communicated tacitly. 

                 This may well be one of the great advantages of generic interpretation. By focusing on the relationship between an utterance and the kinds of utterances that it is involved with, or that have been shaping it, we highlight a central point in the communication between utterance and receiver: the textual or cultural knowledge that is assumed by the utterance to be known. This enables us to see what the text does with the assumed cultural knowledge, how it repeats it, reinterprets it, twists it, or develops it into something new.